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Studia Translatorica Vol. 10

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DOI: 10.23817/strans.10-28 Diana Cărburean Independent researcher/ Romania The Byzantine legal standard transposition strategies into the Romanian regulatory texts of the 17th century Abstract The Byzantine legal standard transposition strategies into the Romanian regulatory texts of the 17th century Unlike the Canon law texts available in the Romanian principalities – Moldavia and Wal- lachia – falling under the Slavic influence, the first legal acts which are subscribed to the secular law and which appear in 1646 [Carte Românească de Învățătură (en. Romanian Book of Learning) or Pravila lui Vasile Lupu (en. Vasile Lupu’s Code of Laws)] and in 1652 [Îndrep- tarea legii (en. The Law’s Rectification) orPravila lui Matei Basarab (en. Matei Basarab’s Code of Laws)] fall under the Greek-Byzantine influence. The present article aims to provide some information regarding the translation mechanisms applied by the Moldavian and Wallachian scholars of the 17th century who aimed at transposing the Byzantine Legal Standard to the everyday life of the two above mentioned Romanian principalities by means of fundamental procedures, such as “analysis (with the underlying meaning determination), transfer, restruc- turing, and testing” (Nida, 2004: 85) of the source message. The most precious information related to the translation process of those times is provided by the cases of untranslatability generated by the legal and terminological gap between the Receiver and the Transmitter. The identification and classification of these cases, but also the highlighting of the solutions the translator found to solve them, represent important steps in understanding the equivalenting process of two unequal legal systems that took place centuries ago in Eastern Europe, as illus- trated by the case of the two Romanian principalities and the Greek-Byzantine one. Keywords: translation strategies, legal translation, functional equivalence, compensation As a phenomenon and process, translation implies the layout of two linguistic systems belonging to different cultures, a balance of forces, within which the source language enjoys a dominant position with relation to the target language. 392• Diana Cărburean This balance of forces, dictated by the one-way cultural transfer, but also by reach- ing the legal translation’s supreme goal – obtaining both semantic and functional VARIA equivalence – is an overwhelming process and it generates a series of “imbal- ances”, registered mainly at the lexical level, especially when the source language is the expression of a superior culture in terms of prestige and seniority, as it was the case of the Greek-Byzantine legal system1 in comparison to the one of the 17th century’s Moldavia and Wallachia. The orientation of the Romanian rulers, Vasile Lupu (Moldavia 1634–1653) and Matei Basarab (Wallachia 1632–1654) as initiators of the normative acts [Carte românească de învățătură2 1646 (en. “Romanian Book of Learning”) – CRÎ, Îndreptarea legii3 1652 (en. The Law’s Rec- tification) – ÎL] towards the legal Greek-Byzantine system was justified by the affiliation of the Danubian countries to that medieval commonwealth, which -de veloped around Constantinople and favoured the geographical proximity to this metropolis, but also to the religious identity (Obolensky 2002: 11). The main objective of this article is represented – as it was expressed in the dichotomy translatability vs. untranslatability – by the identification and the analysis of those cases which, either do not require particular linguistic skills of the translator (due to the previous experience of the canon law texts), or on the contrary, they impose, due to the cultural and linguistic imbalances (generated by the inequality of the two legal systems between which occurred the transfer of concepts), the adoption of some innovative linguistic strategies by the translator, such as the integration of some lexical loans or the compensation of those cases with no immediate correspondent in the indigenous reality. In order to identify these cases, we have analysed the texts of the two codes of law mentioned above in parallel with their Greek-Byzantine sources4, as they were determined and 1| The Greek-Byzantine legal system, unlike the indigenous one, was based on the sole and long-time Roman legal experience to which, throughout the centuries had been added elements of Ancient Greek law, mainly of stoic nature, but also Christian principles, once with the adoption of the Christian religion as sole religion of the Empire and the associ- ation of the Patriarch in the state’s running. 2| Full title Carte românească de învățătură de la pravilele împărătești și de la alte giudețe, cu dzisa și cu toată cheltuiala lui Vasilie voivodul Țării Moldovei din limba ilenească pre limba românească. [en. Romanian Book of Learning extracted from the Imperial laws and from other court cases, with the saying and all the expense of Vasile Voivode of Moldavia, translated from Greek into Romanian language]. 3| Original title Îndreptarea legii cu Dumnezeu carea are toată judecata arhierească și împă- rătească de toate vinile preoțești și mirenești. (en. „With God the Law’s Rectification which contains all the canonic and imperial case-law on all priestly and laity faults”). 4| Agrarian Laws, the Greek version of Praxis et theoricae criminalis (Prospero Farinacci), Hexabiblos (Constantine Harmenopoulos) for the first code of law, namely the parts taken over from Carte românească de învățătură, the Justinian’s Corpus Juris civilis, the Syn- tagma Canonum (Matthew Vlastares), The Nomocanon(Manuil Malaxos), Commentaries The Byzantine legal standard transposition strategies… •393 attached at the end of the critical editions issued by Andrei Rădulescu in 1961 and 1962. In order to understand the leading mechanisms to the selection of some of the VARIA translation strategies mentioned above, a series of aspects related to the training of the translators as well as issuers of the two codes of law must be taken into account. Irrespective of whether we speak of Bogdan Eustratie the Logothete in Moldavia (helped by the Greek scholar and theologian Meletios Syrigos with his Greek translations from Latin) or of scholars Daniil Andrean Panoneanul, Paisios Ligaridis and Ignatie Petritsis in Wallachia, we ascertain from the information remaining from those times, but also regarding the result of their work, that al- though they were facing not only the poverty of the Romanian legal terminology, equal to the Greek-Byzantine one, but also the scarcity of terminological instru- ments (dictionaries5), they all, like the lawyer-linguists nowadays, had solid legal and linguistic knowledge. We do not know if they had “any knowledge of using a stylistic register” (Chivu 2001: 21), or of the nowadays translation mechanisms, but their lexical choices reflect the interest and attention to what the today lin- guists assign to the term: monosemantism, monoreferentiality and univocity. As in other cases, the elements of the dichotomy translatability vs. untranslat- ability are not mutually exclusive, but they are meant to emphasize each other, to provide information about each other and about the translation process. The legal speech is, in its essence, permanently oscillating among a series of dichotomies, such as letter vs. spirit, word vs. meaning. 1 Greek-Byzantine legislation as prototype for the Romanian normative acts The first element of the dichotomy in discussion (translatability) seems to rep- resent an aspiration, which is easy to reach when the translators of the two nor- mative acts chose factors decisive in their work strategy, while considering the structure of the source text, the organization of the criminal matters, the legisla- tor’s scope, as well as the nature of the legal discourse, all the way up to maintain of the Greek-Byzantine syntactical structures. (Alexios Aristinos), Answers of Saint Anastasios of Antioch, the teachings of Saint Basil the Great, the answers of Pope Timothy of Alexandria, Nicetas of Heraclea, Anastasius of Antioch, for the second code of law. 5| The first legal dictionary appeared in 1815 (Iassy) under the titleScară a cuvintelor celor streine și a celor făcute din firea limbii, care cuvinte au cerut neapărat trebuinţa a să metahi- risi in alcătuirea pravililor [en. Lexicon of the foreign and naturaly formed words urged to be used in drafting the laws], supposedly having Christian Flechtenmacher (1785–1843) and Anania Kouzanos (first half of the 18th century – begining of the 19th century) as authors. 394• Diana Cărburean 1.1 Structure of the Target Text Just like the Greek-Byzantine texts which have been deemed as a source, both regu- VARIA latory texts–CRÎ and ÎL– are structured according to the matters laid down in the law, in two comprehensive and distinctive parts (called pricini [en. cases] in the first part andglave [en. chapters] in the second part of CRÎ, but also in the first part of ÎL, and paragraphs (referred to as începături [en. origins] in CRÎ and zaceale (en. paragraphs] in ÎL). Both texts provide Predoslovii [en. Prefaces] signed by Bog- dan Eustratie the Logothete (CRÎ) and Daniil Andrean Panoneanul and the Metro- plitan Bishop (ÎL), the latter being inspired by Matei Vlastare Prefața, who praised the issuer of the regulatory text (CRÎ), the pursued purpose and the work method (CRÎ), the sources of the text (CRÎ, ÎL), the travail of those involved (CRÎ, ÎL). 1.2 Word order in the Target Text The word order is in most cases a Greek one:Muerii căriia-i va muri bărbatul [en. To the woman whose man shall die] (ÎL case 261) < Tῆς γυναικὸς ὁποῦ ἀπε- θάνη ὁ ἄνδρας αὐτῆς (MN6, chapter 201). According to the Greek pattern, a series of inversions non-specific for the Romanian linguistic system can be noticed: pre-positioning of the adjective: dumnezăieștile pravile [en. Divine Laws] (ÎL case 318) < τῶν θείων κανόνων (MN, Canon 43 of the Synod from Cartagena); supțiri tocmiri [en. weak contracts] (ÎL case 174) < ψιλὰ σύμφωνα (MN, chapter 146); adverbial of manner + predi- cate: cu sila și fără de voia lui să-l facă [en.
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